Keeping it local

This year I've made a conscious decision to 'keep it local'.

Clapham Common is a great part of London; a green haven tucked down in the south of this sprawling city. It's a microcosm of different cultures and communities, all wrapped around the outside of this vast outdoor space that is the common.

Despite the fabulous features, it's easy to take it all for granted. In the average week you'll walk past the common to catch the bus or tube; returning home 12 hours later, barely giving it a glimpse. And on the weekend in the winter, you might even avoid its quite muddy surfaces all together.

But this year I'm trying to spend more time making the most of our collective backyard.

Every Monday I have a tennis lesson on its very nice, floodlight tennis courts, with a local coach and other locals eager to improve their backhands. Thursdays see me at the Trinity Church on the opposite side of the common, speaking bad español alongside nine others. Then on Saturday mornings I drag myself out of bed to run, jump, bend and lie on the common's muddy surface with a bunch of other local fools, while everyone else is enjoying a sleep in. And of course now that marathon training is on the schedule, I'm joining the others, circumnavigating this great space at all times of the day and night.

Our common is the life force that brings people together around here. This year I intend on spending more time appreciating just how fortunate we really are.

And so it begins

Better late than never should probably be the headline for this post. The 2011 Paris marathon is on April 10th, and I'm registered to run.

Now that is apparently 12 weeks, 2 days, and about 19 hours away. Not really that far into the future, considering how far 26 miles really is. On foot.

Somehow, at Christmas time, as I forced another mince pie down, it seemed ages away.

But the fear of failure has finally hit, and I've now re-connected with my trainers.

Marathon training: day 1 - trying to protect myself from the 5 degree conditions

It's now been about two weeks and I'm slowly getting back into it. Although it still takes all of the willpower I can possibly muster to climb out from under my duvet at 6am on a very dark, and really rather cold morning.

Farewell festive season

The 6th of January sees the official end to the festive season. A bright and tasty light in an otherwise dark couple of months, it's a very welcome festival on this side of the world.

But all good things must come to an end, and yesterday as I walked home, I mourned its passing as I walked along pavements littered with forlorn looking Christmas tree skeletons, lying prone, waiting for the bin men to remove them. Their work is done here; they are no longer required. They are off to become wood chips.

Now we must dig around and find the boxes the decorations belong in, take down the Christmas cards from friends and family, and try to remember to buy a 2011 calendar.

"On with the new year!" we must think. We turn our faces towards the light of the ever-lengthening days, and think about festivities to come: birthdays, Royal weddings, trips abroad, visits from loved ones, and the taste of the approaching spring.

A dying art

Go into your average stationery shop here in the UK and you'll see walls just lined with greeting cards. Including some for occasions you haven't even heard of before.

You can buy the obvious cards of course: births, deaths and marriages; all the milestone ages, sorry you're leaving, good luck in retirement, Mother's, Father's, Christmas and Valentine's Day. But apparently we also now want to send cards for Easter, Halloween, St Patrick's Day, graduation, and when you've moved house too.

Publishers in the UK produce more than 2.6 billion greeting cards every year. And those of us here in Britain buy more cards than any other country in the world. That's an industry worth over £1.2 billion a year. More than we spend on tea and coffee put together.

Unfortunately, so many cards now seem to be just about the token gesture. Apparently we're too busy these days to actually write messages. Where did all the words go?

The other day, when I went into a large and well-stocked stationery shop looking for some lovely writing paper, I was very disappointed. There were a million types of wrapping paper, gift bags, gift boxes, tags, small cards, big cards, cards that turned into freestanding Christmas scenes, ready-made wedding invitations, place setting cards, photo albums, diaries and calendars, but only two kinds of writing paper. In two shades of white.

Do people not write letters anymore? Are we at such a stage that we require information instantly and can't wait for Royal Mail to deliver? Am I just terribly behind in loving things falling through that old school slot in the door?

I very much fear that the art of letter writing is dying out. It's going the way of dance cards and long-distance train travel. So this year, I plan to do my best to bring the letter back. Let's make mail cool again. It worked for cupcakes and knitting. Why can't we revive post?

2011 is going to be the year of the letter. Surely there are few things more wonderful than coming home to find a handwritten envelope waiting for you on the bench. You make a cup of tea, sit somewhere comfortable and then wrap yourself in another person's words for a few moments of time, their voice reading aloud to you; laughter, tears, and exclamations.

Please join me in trying to save something is really quite lovely. I just don't think we're really that busy we can't put pen to paper to brighten someone else's day.

Why not give it a go?

2010 debrief

It's time for the blogging wrap up of the year. A few moments for reflection before moving onto bigger and better things. Same questions as last year. Hopefully different answers.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?

Kissed a stingray; built a snowman; voted in a British General Election

2. What countries did you visit?

New Zealand, USA, Cayman Islands, Turkey, France and Wales

3. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

More vegetables in my garden; time and head space to dedicate to my studies; another marathon medal

4. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

When I heard that the 29 trapped NZ miners had no chance of survival.

5. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Writing a 5,500 word essay and thereby completing the first year of my masters. In your face full time job.

6. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Nope (touches wood). I seem to be disgustingly healthy despite all of the man-flu I'm constantly surrounded by.

7. What was the best thing you bought?

Well, it was bought for me, but it would have to be my beautiful bright red Kenwood mixer. I love it almost more than life itself.

Oh, and my fabulous little iPhone.

8. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

My beautiful housemates; Anika and Richard who upped sticks and moved to The Gambia to volunteer a year of their lives; all those involved in my wonderful 30th birthday dinner celebration; my parents - for just being fabulous; my sisters with their endless quantities of energy to raise wonderful children and animals, create gardens, run half-marathons, all the while holding down jobs and relationships; and all of my friends who are out there doing great things, locally or globally

9. Where did most of your money go?

My becoming ever-more expensive university fees; paying off chunks of my student loan; a trip to the Caymans and a week in Turkey

10. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Standing on a seven mile white sand beach in the Caribbean, and not be dreaming; watching two sets of fabulous friends get married, one in a teepee, one in a golf club

11. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Writing (as per usual); keeping in touch with long-distance loved ones

12. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Sitting in the office until all hours of the night; being anxious various aspects of work and play

13. What did you want and get?

A Le Creuset casserole dish; a trip to see my wonderful friend Belinda in the Caymans

14. What did you want and not get?

Just those things that I know are unrealistic right now, like: a pet dog and cat, a pet squirrel which eats seeds from my hand, more trips to see my family, a PhD, a living room with a built-in bookcase...

15. Did you keep your new year's resolutions and did you make any for 2011?

2010's resolutions = more studying, more crafting, more cooking, more saving, less spending.

I think I did ok with these, although I was probably working from a pretty low base.

2011's resolutions = even more studying, learn Spanish, write more letters, improve my tennis serve, pay off more student loan (maybe even all), and save some. Oh, and be with my family for Christmas.

How to build a snowman

1. Start with a very small ball of snow. And roll it.....


2. Keep rolling it......


3. When you get bored, take a break to make snow angels while someone with more stamina keeps rolling....


4. Then realise that you'll be here all night (or you'll end up with a deformed snowman) if you don't start rolling your own ball...

5. Send some of the team off to find eyes, a nose, arms, buttons etc..

6. Assemble snowman very carefully. Add accessories.

7. Take picture of snowman.

8. Then, in order to protect snowman from any possible danger, dismantle him, carry him 300m, through the house, and re-assemble him on the garden table out of harm's way.

Wonderful weather

Mother nature must have known that I needed a pick-me-up this week. Because yesterday morning she let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

And over the period of about two hours on a Saturday morning, London went from it's normal slightly grey colour, to a wonderful powdery bright white.

Snow turns the mundane to the magical. Today the sun rose at 8.04am and set at 3.53pm. This could get very depressing. But walking home from Christmas shopping at 4.30pm in the dark is transformed into a wonderful wintry journey as the moon shines down on the still-thick layer of snow blanketing Clapham Common.

Indoor activities

While the outdoors look like this:

There's nothing like getting back to craft. Dusting off the needle book and digging out the bag filled with fabric in all shapes and sizes.

Ever so slowly, my patchwork is getting bigger. I almost have the length, now I need to work on the width. That's what the four days over Christmas is for.

And how nice it was, last night, to sit on the sofa with a fellow crafter, talking quilting, backing and how untidy we each think our work is. And then we sat and looked at the different fabrics that make up my patchwork family. "What's this one from?" she'd ask. "Oh, that's one of my Dad's favourite shirts". Or, "that's my bridesmaid's dress from Belinda's wedding".

Today I'm planning to sew some more of my sister Chris into the family.

London - I love you but....

I just can't love your limescale.

Mostly I can avoid it, but it's when I'm making a cup of tea at work and something vaguely resembling a small lime-esque brain falls out of the kettle, that I'm reminded.

In how many places do your kettles end up rattling with all the limescale that attaches itself to the inside, and then flakes off just in time to end up in your morning beverage?

It's London's notoriously hard water which is to blame. The water which blatantly refuses to remove anything from your hair when 'washing' it. This means that anytime you shower in a soft water location, you end up looking like a five year old who was left alone with the bubble bath.

'Tis the season...

.... to fly to New Zealand.

Everyone's doing it. Back to brilliant sunshine (or so it seems at the moment), flat whites, friends, unexpected sunburn, Monteiths Summer Ale, and family.

Whether it's for weddings, babies or visas, a lot of people decide to make the trip back to NZ over the English winter. And not surprising why.

But this time around I'm going straight through. Head down, scarf on, with eyes watering from the piercing cold, I'm charging straight through this winter with no Southern Hemisphere reprieve.